Dad's teardrops

I was under orders not to cry. First from my graduating-from-high-school daughter. And then later from her school's head mistress, who informed me that she likes to focus her gaze when she speaks to the graduating class on a parent who isn't crying.

When my daughter told her I was already forbidden to shed any tears, the head mistress hopped on board the dad-isn't-going-to-cry bandwagon.

The truth is I may have been under orders, but I had never agreed to it. And if I had, I would have had my fingers and toes crossed anyway.

Impossible for me to not tear up watching this little girl, now suddenly a young woman, bound for college.

So I did.

And I don't think my daughter nor the head mistress saw it.

I like to think of it as a win-win for everyone concerned.

So I'm still on cloud nine as we prep for our 11 p.m. newscast.

And the news is troubling. We're keeping a close watch on Brighton Beach, where there's a stepped-up police presence tonight after last night's shooting - cops say it may have been gang-related - that left one young girl dead and four other people injured. Two shooters opened fire on peeps sitting on a bench. Were they targeted? Were they random victims? The answer might be yes, and yes.

We'll have the latest on the police search for the shooters, tonight at 11.

Also at 11, cops are once again on the hunt for a sexual assault suspect. What a horrible run recently of violence against women in New York - from elderly women to hotel maids to, in the most recent case, a 20-year-old woman on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, walking the street at 2:30 early this morning. The man attacked her and she managed to fight him off.

Like some of the other recent sexual assaults, the man police say is a suspect was captured on surveillance video. (Is there any corner not covered by a camera these days?)

And our Nina Pineda tonight has a story for anyone who returns products to stores. This time it's a look at the return policy at Toys R Us, the giant toy chain.

A woman was told she had reached her limit for returning merchandise. Who knew there was a limit? The woman called Nina and got 7 On Your Side to help out.

We'll also have any breaking news of the night, plus Meteorologist Lee Goldberg with his weekend AccuWeather forecast, and Rob Powers with the night's sports. I hope you can join Sade Baderinwa and me, tonight at 11, right after 20/20.